Recently, a fellow Vietnam veteran and I spent 9 days in HCMC vicinity visiting places where we were stationed during our Vietnam tour with the 1st, 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions from 1966 through 1967.
This was our “Bucket List” trip. When I started planning the trip, it seemed to me that a Vietnam-based tour operator would best able to suit our needs.
Somehow More Fun Travel stood out as the name seemed to say it all. We simply gave Ngoc our list of places to see and she took care of the rest. I was especially impressed by Ngoc’s quick response to email questions – even after we made the last payment.
And her expert advice about what to pack, required inoculations, the strong recommendation to buy travel insurance and other such easily-forgotten things. After several iterations of the itinerary, we were ready to go.
We arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. Our guide, Nguyen Trang met us at the airport and we immediately hit it off. His knowledge, insight and friendliness exceeded our expectations. He and our driver were always on time in the morning and we managed to get in a full day’s touring.
While we found the places where we were stationed; however, we were surprised by the changes over the last 45 years. HCMC is a vibrant modern city, we found the house where I lived and the building where I worked (MACV II) my first month in Vietnam.
The Cu Chi caves were amazing. Black Lady Mountain was inspiring. Di An is totally industrialized. Vung Tau has the same wide, picturesque beaches which made it a popular in-county R&R destination.
The airstrip at Dau Tieng is now used as road. We even found some local citizens who were there when we were. Needless to say, we spent a couple afternoons comparing notes with Mr. Trang acting as our translator. And we especially enjoyed the Mekong River tour. Vietnamese food is great.
Thank you for the wonderful memories.
Vietnam III corps areas 8 days
October – November 2012
We arrived home tired after a long flight from Singapore. We have brought back so many wonderful memories of your amazing country.
The whole trip was organized so professionally by your company and all the guides and drivers are a credit to you.
Their knowledge and experience helped make our trip so relaxed and enjoyable. I would not hesitate to recommend you if any of our family and friends ever consider a trip to your country.
Many thanks again,
It is amazing that we have been back a week after our wonderful holiday. We would like to thank you for organising it perfectly.
It was a comprehensive programme of interesting places we visited. All the hotels were excellent and everything ran so smoothly. The four guides were very knowledgeable and friendly and we enjoyed their company. A special mention for Maylinh in Sapa who was very good and took us to The Homestay which was an unforgettable experience.
We could not find any faults at all and will leave some favourable comments on trip advisor. Thanks once again.
We had such a wonderful time in your beautiful country. It was a truly memorable holiday. My most endearing memories will be the happy, helpful, energetic people and the fabulous food.
All the hotels were excellent but our favourite was the Ancient House in Hoi An. Our favourite restaurants were also in Hoi An – too many to name just one.
All the excursions were fun, particularly the bike rides, lantern making and cookery class. The boat trip on Ha Long Bay was fabulous, especially the food. Hue was definitely worth a visit.
Given more time we would have had an extra day in Hanoi. We were just about getting used to the traffic and the humidity and finding our way around when it was time to go. We would also like to have had an extra day in Sapa. It was so relaxing and the people so interesting.
This is just a short email to say how much all four of us enjoyed our travel experience to Vietnam.
Our holiday was made very special thanks to your organising and your great staff (guides) very much so was Lee in Saigon, it was so much naughty fun” to have him guiding us “he is a true gem”.
We cannot thank you enough for the reminder of Vietnam in the way of the tablecloth, and meeting you also certainly put a personal touch to the start of our tour.
Once again thank you so much for you planning of a most memorable trip for all of us, you are worth your weight in gold.
Upon the recommendation of a friend, I contacted Ngoc and asked her to arrange a holiday in Vietnam for my wife and I. Ngoc then organised everything for our trip, including a driver, guide, accommodation, internal flights and most meals to cover 14 days in Vietnam.
There was nothing I had to organise other than to get into the country to start the holiday. She made it so simple. Our holiday went as smoothly as Ngoc’s organisation.
We had three different guides, who all had an extraordinary knowledge of their country and all showed how proud they were to represent their people and culture to us foreigners.
The accommodation was first class, the meals were delicious and the tours interesting and, in some cases, spectacular. I can commend Ngoc and her company, More Fun Travel, to any potential visitor to Vietnam.
A big thank you to your team for helping make our Vietnam and Cambodia trip a really great holiday! The guides and drivers in Hanoi/Ha Long, Hue/Danang/Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City and Siem Reap were all fantastic.
Your guides were very knowledgeable, treated us like special family and gave us a real local experience. They helped with hotels, flights, shopping, eating out – everything we needed. A special warm thanks to Vinh and Khanh in Danang – they really looked after us like close friends.
We are so glad that we booked our personalised tour with your local team and not with an overseas, impersonal big group operator. We’ve recommended a holiday in Vietnam & Cambodia with More Fun Travel to all our friends and if (hopefully when) we return we’ll use your team again.
Ngoc organised a 2 week tour of Vietnam for me and my family in April 2013. We were a bit late in organising our tour and were very impressed by Ngoc’s speed of response. Within days we had our programme sorted. We had a fantastic time in Vietnam. Everything was well organised and all the tour guides and drivers were personable, knowledgeable and reliable.
Ngoc understood the needs of my family with two active children of 9 and 11 years well and made provisions so we had enough variety in the tour. We visited HCMC, Hoi An, Hanoi, Sapa and Haloong Bay. Without Ngoc we couldn’t have had such a rich programme.
We loved Sapa and our home stay in the mountains. Our Sapa guide had totally sussed us out and suggested a change to the original plan and he was spot on.
When we didn’t like the hotel on Hoi An, Ngoc reacted immediately and within less than 24 hours we moved into a different and fantastic hotel. We can only recommend Ngoc and More Fun Travel – a 5 star service.
First of all, thank you for organizing a most memorable trip that far exceeded our expectations. You were excellent to work with in developing our complex itinerary; very professional, thorough and efficient in responding to all our questions.
Our guides in Vietnam were all gracious and pleasant. Phong and Vinh had a good grasp of our language and were easy to understand. They also did a good job of providing info on your countries history and culture. At times we had some difficulty understanding Trang but he more than made up for it with his tenacity to find people that I could talk to about my time in the military.
He also provided info on the trees and birds of your country and was great company for me as we hiked together to the top of Nui Ba Den Mountain.
Halong Bay and the Dragon Pearl accommodations and meals were excellent.
Your country has come a long way from what I remember 46 years ago. It made me feel good to see how vibrant your economy is and I also felt no lasting animosity towards Americans. On the contrary, people were very friendly and helpful; it all changed my bad memories of 46 years ago to good memories of today!!
Our time in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand was excellent.The culture, history and scenery were amazing. The guides in Cambodia (Chan) and Thailand (Ms. Jib) were superior; we would highly recommend them!
Chan had an excellent knowledge of history and the time of Angkor Wat. Ms. Jib was very pleasant to be with and spent a lot of time with us at lunch and in the evenings. This afforded us more opportunity to informally learn about Thai cuisine and the culture of her country.
All of our accommodations met or exceeded our expectations with the possible exception of our hotel in Tay Ninh, which was ok but not up to the others in quality. Transportation was top notch.
The vans were all clean and comfortable. Our drivers in Ho Chi Minh City (Win) and in Thailand (Tee) were amazing in the way they could maneuver thru heavy traffic.
I would highly recommend More Fun Travel for anyone considering a custom itinerary to South East Asia.
My parents visited Vietnam for 2 weeks with More Fun Travel and had such an unbelievably wonderful time there that they convinced me and my girlfriend to visit as well. Following their experience, I went immediately to More Fun Travel to organize the trip. Ngoc was always so helpful and gave sound advice during our planning phase, and together we devised an itinerary which suited us specifically.
Thanks to More Fun Travel, our journey was an unforgettable one. The service is admirable. The guides and drivers were always on time waiting for us, very respectful to us, super knowledgeable and informative, and got the perfect balance of guiding us through whilst allowing us privacy and independence. I also need to mention that whilst adhering to the devised plan, all guides were practical and flexible in the face of unexpected circumstances (such as extreme fog) to come up with great alternatives.
The booked accommodation and food was always of good standard (sometimes better than expected!).
All in all this trip was close to perfect and thanks to this company all 3 weeks went by pleasantly without a hiccup.
Another thing I need to mention is that on one occasion one of the airlines damaged our luggage. I was so impressed when Ngoc herself took it upon herself to arrange this issue for us even though it was beyond her responsibility to do so. Thanks to her, we were supplied with a new luggage to replace our damaged one and could happily continue with our experience in Vietnam!
Top notch! Highly recommended 🙂
